accent and dialect Flashcards
what is idiolect and sociolect?
idiolect : the way we speak / pronounce
sociolect : language spoken by a social group e.g. friendship group, class, ethnic group, family
effects / factors of our idiolect?
social life / friends, genetics, birth place, where you live, parents, media, judgement
Accommodation Theory by Howard Giles?
The theory that speakers seek approval in a social situation and are likely to change their speech so that it is similar to their listener.
If they don’t want to be associated with the speaker, they may change their speech to show they’re different.
what is RP?
Received Pronunciation. Esteemed / prestigious
Les Parrott ?
-says that wearing the right clothes does help form teen identities by expressing affiliation with specific groups
-other factors; through forbidden behaviours (smoking & drinking)
; through rebellion
; through idols
; through cliquish exclusion e.g. unattractive features
Joanna Thornborrow?
“one of the most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity, and of shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our language”
this ‘use’ includes lexical choices, grammatical constructions in speech, variations in phonology
BBC ARTICLE - Stephanie McGovern
- was written in 2013
- Stephanie McGovern works on BBC breakfast
- she’s deemed by some people in her work as unsuitable because of her Teesside accent
- business journalist for 10 years but viewers still believe she’s too common for telly
- people assume she hasn’t got a brain
Trudgill - speech community ?
“totality of linguistic varieties used in different social contexts by a particular community of speakers”
not age - communities
criticisms - vague
what is a speech community?
a group of people who share the same patterns of language use
Eckert - defining age?
- she found people’s language was often affected by important life events. Therefore, we cannot assume all people of a certain age speak the same.
She defined age in 3 ways
How did Eckert define age in three ways?
Chronological age : age since birth
Biological age : physical maturity
Social age : events such as marriage or divorce
Definition of syntax, pragmatic, phonology and semantics?
Syntax - order of sentences
Pragmatics - context
Phonology - sounds
Semantics - meanings
Gary Ives Study?
- according to him, the answer is yes to ‘does age affects language use?’
- spoke to 63 students in a few West Yorkshire schools - all said yes
- the student assumed as we got older, we’d stop swearing, use more standard english, become more posh
what is code switching?
mixing languages
Eble (1996) quote?
“slang is an ever changing set of colloquial words and phrases that speakers use to establish or reinforce social identity or cohesiveness within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at large”
slang words / phrases statistics?
crime/criminal - 5000 words
men - 2100
policemen - 1000
money/rich/poor - 3300
killing/murder - 522
positives of slang?
- bring us closer together
- express yourself
- euphemisms
- take off pressure / easy / convenient
negatives of slang ?
- people may feel left out
- informal
- lead into taboo
- stereotypes
- lead into negative behaviour
- effects our punctuation
Why do people use slang?
Andersson & Trudgill (1990) ?
‘to show belonging to a group it to keep outsiders outside’
Why do people use slang?
Allen (1998) ?
emphasises very strongly that slang is a sociological rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon, used to mark social differences
Why do people use slang?
Eble (1996) ?
Argue that slang is used by speakers for the purpose of creating or reinforcing relationships with a group or trend
Klerk (2005) ?
-young people seek to establish new identities
-patterns of speech previously modelled on adults are slowly eroded by patterns of speech by their peer group
-establish themselves as different
Jenny Cheshire ?
Agrees that it wasn’t just chronological age which affects our language
“develops in response to important life events”
reasons why you use slang?
-perhaps slang just happens naturally?
-we use shortened or acronym versions or ‘clippings’ of words to speed up our communication
-our language is multi model
Mary Kohn (2016) ?
-argues that teen speak is not ruining our language
-helps bond with other ternsb
-helps communicate with audience
-natural process of language change
-part of being human
bidalectalism?
the ability to use two with dialects of the same language, people adapting their language to meet the needs of a different situation
